Many wireless communication protocols have power saving modes that allow a network interface card (NIC) of a mobile station to be inactivated when the mobile station is idle and reactivated when the mobile station is engaged in active communications. However, in many instances the costs associated with the latency of communicating activation/deactivation of the NIC to a base station outweighs the benefits provided by powering down the NIC. This is especially true in the case of a wireless communication protocol that strictly choreographs the allocation of uplink and downlink access periods of the various communication devices of the network.